By Emmanuel Onwubiko
The English philosopher and psychologist, Herbert Spencer, coined the phrase “survival of the fittest” (1820-1903). He is famous for his doctrine of social Darwinism, which asserts that the principles of evolution, including natural selection, apply to human societies, social classes, and individuals as well as to biological species developing over geologic time.
In Spencer’s days, social Darwinism was invoked to justify laissez-faire economics and the minimal state, which were thought to best promote unfettered competition between individuals and the gradual improvement of society through the “survival of the fittest.”
Laissez-faire in economics is a staple of free- market capitalism.
The theory suggests that economy is strongest when the government stays out of
the economy entirely, letting market forces behave naturally.
Nigeria’s socio-political situation under the government of
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu represents a perfect dramatis personae of this sort
of social Darwinism of Herbert Spencer who was British.
The multilateral creditor institutions such as the World Bank and
IMF are the kitchens whereby the policies that mimic this theory of Henry
Spencer are cooked and forced down the throat of the government of Tinubu and
much of the grossly underdeveloped or Third World nations.
Henry
Spencer’s baby which is the phrase “survival of the fittest,” flashed through
my subconscious when recently, I read that the “World Bank wants fuel sold at
N750.”
I was initially so angry, but after a thoughtful reconsideration,
for a while, I got calmed down because of the fact that professionally, in news
writing, bad news is good news.
I am in a very deep contemplation about the democratization of
absolute poverty that has been systematically unleashed by the economic
policies of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s government.
The be-all and end-all of the cumulative offensive and
anti-people’s economic policies of the current government in Nigeria, is the
decision to hike the asking pump price of fuel.
I am not here to argue for or against the so- called withdrawal of
subsidy payments to private importers of fuel into Nigeria. Nor is it the remit
of this piece to interrogate the rationale behind spending over $3 billion to
embark on turn around maintenance of four publicly owned crude oil refineries.
The fundamental of this piece is about how the phrase “survival of
the fittest,” has fittingly become our national lifestyle in Nigeria. This is
even shocking because even if we argue on the side of adopting social Darwinism
as an ideology, what is in practice in Nigeria is not ideologically rooted but
substantially influenced by politics of brazen act of corruption and vandalism
of public resources by officials of government.
Somehow, IMF and World Bank that constantly induce politicians in
Nigeria to follow the footsteps of social Darwinism, officials of those Bretton
Woods institutions, who are largely Americans, do not practice such in their
countries because in USA and even in the United Kingdom, is the homestead of
Henry Spencer, government engages in social welfare and hasn’t totally divested
from business.
But sadly, in Nigeria now, the only set of citizens who gain the
rare entry into political offices are majorly those who operate by the mantra
that says “Might is right.” Somehow, they now twist and weaponise survival of
the fittest in such a way that the official economic policies they impose in
Nigeria, are those that progressively impoverish the greatest percentage
of the citizens just as a very tiny minority constituting the ruling political
class, are the ones enjoying the commonwealth.
Worst still, decency, merits, competencies and expertise, have all
but fled from Nigeria’s public space. This political degeneration which is the
opposite of the teaching of Plato that only “philosopher Kings” should become
political leaders for a society to make acceptable progress, has now unleashed
the very dangerous lifestyle of “Survival of the Fittest,” in a way that it
takes sophisticated crime technique to remain above the waters of economic
insolvency.
The
side effect of this kind or mode of operation is that poverty is now spread in
massive scale and the middle class has totally disappeared to such a critical
level that even those who are living well, do not accept to share a fraction of
their wealth with the majority who do not have.
And because in Nigeria now, the middle class is no more, the few
who are in power politically, and wield the influence to say how the national
wealth should be redistributed, have severely limited the scope of the
beneficiaries to their very intimate class of friends, political associates and
a few who are comfortable to eat from the crumbs that fall from the master’s
table.
Also, the national economic hemorrhage has escalated because the
number of those ‘masters’ willing to admit the members of the ‘hoi polloi’ into
their closets to benefit from the crumbs falling from their rich tables have
significantly reduced. This is why poverty is biting significantly and
affecting significant majority of the citizens.
Another key factor why this offensive national lifestyle of
political occupiers of public offices is being sustained is the general or
collective sense of gullibility and unwillingness of the poor majority to
resist the cannibalistic economic policies unleashed on the citizenry by the
few wicked elites in political offices.
These politicians are propelled by extreme toxic policies handed
down to them by such capitalist institutions such as the World bank and IMF.
How else can one explain that even when people are already starving
due to high costs of living exacerbated by the increment in pump price of fuel
and the floating of the value of the naira, the World Bank is still very
insensitive to ask that fuel price be upped or further hiked?
The World Bank has said the Federal Government may still be paying
fuel subsidies considering that the country’s fuel price of N650 is currently
not cost-reflective.
The
bank’s Lead Economist for Nigeria, Alex Sienaert, disclosed this during his
presentation of the Nigeria Development Update, December 2023 edition in Abuja.
During the hybrid event, he said that fuel should cost N750 per
litre according to today’s official exchange rate. He emphasised that to
ensure the government reaps the rewards of its audacious reforms, the bank
advises it to take further actions.
If the World bank is not populated by haters of the poor
Nigerians, how else can they justify this satanic verse?
At
the current extremely high pump price of petrol of N617 per litre, an average
head of a young family, who earns N200,000 monthly, can no longer afford to
fuel his second hand car so as to drop his children at school.
Let
us even concede that such a distressed head of the family, runs into the good
fortune of obtaining funding assistance from a rich family member struggling
for survival in Europe, America or Canada, and then set up say, a barbing
saloon. The viability of such a small business is almost zero due to lack of
constant supply of electricity from the national grid.
The only option is for such a person to sell off his Jalopy car,
or still beg for more assistance so he can buy a small generator to power the
operations of the barbing salon.
Adams
Oshiomhole, a Senator, recently did the nation a good service by exposing the
minister of trade and industry who is requesting for N1 billion from the public
purse, to fund foreign trips to attend seminars probably organised by the World
Bank that is insensitive to the widespread poverty in Nigeria.
But when Oshiomhole exposed the secret intention to waste N1 billion to embark on European tour, she said nothing but came out of the Senate to issue a rebuttal when the news of the encounter with Oshiomhole made major headlines in the mainstream media.
Doris Uzoka, Minister of Trade, Industry, and Investment, came under scrutiny
when she appeared before some senators to defend her ministry’s budget.
Uzoka was answering questions from the National Assembly’s joint
committee on trade and investment about the 2024 budget proposal.
The Minister told the joint panel that N905 million is earmarked
for overhead costs while N8.1 billion is allocated to capital expenditure.
After presenting the figures in the budget, Adams Oshiomhole, a member of the
committee, frowned at a line item which provides N1 billion for a single trip
to Geneva, Switzerland.
The lawmaker also asked the Minister where the country’s balance
of trade stood, especially with China. Not satisfied with her response,
Oshiomhole said he did not agree with her submission.
The National Assembly members themselves now have N160 million
worth of exotic foreign made jeeps for each of the less than 500 legislators.
The President the other day, travelled to Dubai with a very large entourage to
attend a climate change conference.
There is widespread corruption in the armed forces, police,
aviation sectors under the government. Yet, the government is focused on
spreading poverty, frustration, job losses and death because the citizens are
so gullible to fight for their right. And so, the entire country is possessed
by the ghost of survival of the fittest and might is now right.
*Onwubiko
is the head of the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) and was
National Commissioner of the National Human Rights Commission of Nigeria.
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